Supreme Court

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has revived a Christian college's challenge to President Obama's health-care overhaul, with the acquiescence of the Obama administration. The court on Monday ordered the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., to consider the claim by Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., that the health-care law violates the school's religious freedoms. The court's action means only that the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit must now pass judgment on issues it previously declined to rule on. A federal district judge rejected Liberty's claims, and a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit voted 2-1 that the lawsuit was premature and never dealt with the substance of the school's arguments.

TRENTON - For nearly 30 years, a court ruling aimed at preventing discrimination against low-income families has informed decisions on how much affordable housing New Jersey towns must have. Those guidelines could change significantly if the state Supreme Court agrees with municipalities and the Christie administration that development should determine the number of low-cost units in a town. The court heard arguments on the issue Wednesday during a five-hour hearing. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Appellate Judge Mary Catherine Cuff, who is temporarily filling a vacancy on the high court, were not present.

TRENTON - For nearly 30 years, a court ruling aimed at preventing discrimination against low-income families has informed decisions on how much affordable housing New Jersey towns must have. Those guidelines could change significantly if the state Supreme Court agrees with municipalities and the Christie administration that development should determine the number of low-cost units in a town. The court heard arguments on the issue Wednesday during a five-hour hearing. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and Appellate Judge Mary Catherine Cuff, who is temporarily filling a vacancy on the high court, were not present.

The state Supreme Court has suspended Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Thomas Nocella, who is accused of misrepresenting his qualifications to win a city bar association recommendation for last year's election. Nocella was given the suspension order Friday and was instructed that he was "relieved of any and all judicial and administrative responsibility. " It does not affect his judicial salary of $165,000 or benefits, his lawyer said Monday. Attorney Samuel Stretton said the high court gave Nocella no chance to present a defense before the order was issued.

BELLEFONTE, PA. - A condemned inmate escaped lethal injection Thursday for the murder of a teen girl, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the execution should be halted. Just hours after a federal appeals court put a stop to the preparations, the high court agreed, preventing Hubert Lester Michael Jr. from becoming the first person executed in the state since 1999. Michael, who pleaded guilty to the shooting death of Trista Elizabeth Eng in 1993, had been taken earlier in the day to Rockview State Prison in Bellefonte, home of the execution chamber.

Convicted Pennsylvania killer Hubert L. Michael Jr.'s life was extended for at least two more weeks tonight when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a stay of execution granted earlier Thursday by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia. "On behalf of Hubert Michael, we are extremely pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the stay of execution issued by the Court of Appeals," said Helen Marino, chief of the Federal Defender's death-penalty unit, which represented Michael. "The courts recognized that there are compelling claims relating to Mr. Michael's debilitating mental conditions that have never been reviewed by any court [and]

WASHINGTON - Two class-action disputes divided the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as companies looked to build on the victory won last year when the justices threw out a nationwide sex-bias suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The court's Republican-appointed majority questioned separate efforts to press an antitrust suit against Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable-television company, and a securities-fraud case targeting Amgen Inc., the world's...

With its landmark ruling in June banning mandatory lifetime jail sentences for teenage killers, the U.S. Supreme Court stood up for the principle that those acting out of immaturity - even if guilty of the most heinous crimes - might one day pay their debt to society in full. But the high court stopped short of banning life-without-parole sentences, leaving it up to states to determine whether lifetime sentences remain an option. Judging from the initial flurry of states rewriting their sentencing rules - as Pennsylvania did last week - the trend is toward preserving the right to throw away the key for some young offenders who take a life.